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however, fruitless. Stone masses of some sort were on all sides of us in profusion ; every slope was littered with them. But one and all they had surfaces of silvery whiteness ; and our hammers showed us that they were nothing but grey limestone. There were green fragments everywhere, but none beyond the size of a pebble ; and we were obliged to content ourselves with making a collection of these, when time warned us that we ought to be turning home-wards. We had, however, hardly proceeded a couple of hundred yards when something caught my eye which made me stop short suddenly. On an open plot amongst some myrtle bushes, that was dotted with a few grey boulders, I saw amongst these a large sombre something, which a second glance showed me was a mass of dark green stone. We both of us hastened up to it. It was the very thing we were in search of, except that in size it fell far short of my expectations. It was perhaps as large as a small pig, and was not wholly unlike a pig in shape. I broke off what rudely corresponded to the nose ; and having hastily looked in vain for anything else like it, I handed the specimen to Scotty, and we resumed our way, promising ourselves to return and continue our explorations in a day or two. The journey home was interesting in several unexpected ways. We went down the mountains so quickly that we were again traversing Kythrea before' the gold was gone from the afternoon sunlight. Pre-sently, as we neared a poor isolated cottage, the pre- 126 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

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